252 ON THE SMALLER BRITISH BIRDS. 



enumeration we may have omitted the names of a few birds that sing in 

 February ; but we believe that one common and justly admired native chorister, 

 the Garden Ouzel (Merula hortensis), never sings before the warm weather is 

 regularly set in, and even then it is among the latest to commence, being usually 

 first heard during one of those delightful sunny showers peculiar to, and so 

 frequent in, April, and it is on those refreshing evenings that its deep rich 

 melody sounds so charmingly in the yet leafless groves. We have elsewhere 

 observed — what has hitherto been overlooked by most naturalists — that many 

 birds which have been silent throughout a fair day, will immediately begin to 

 sing when a shower of rain comes on. The Missel Thrush, it is well known, 

 will pipe away merrily in the midst of a snow-storm, and a shower of rain at the 

 close of a July evening, is sure to set all the Garden Ouzels in the neighbour- 

 hood singing. 



It is also a curious, and in some measure a well-known fact, that some birds 

 will sing late at night when a stone is thrown into the bush where they are 

 roosting, or if any loud noise is made in the vicinity. Many of our readers are 

 doubtless familiar with the circumstance as regards the Sedge Reedling ( Scdi- 

 caria phragmitis), but it is commonly believed that the Nightingale will not 

 sing if a disturbance is made in the neighbourhood of its asylum. There cannot 

 be a greater mistake than this ; for we have repeatedly ascertained that on some 

 of those dark windy nights in which Philomel's luscious strains are rarely heard 

 under ordinary circumstances, it might be roused by the striking of the Hall 

 clock, the shutting of a gate, or any other loud noise. We have likewise known 

 the Robin Redbreast strike up its note on hearing the rumbling of carriage-wheels 

 approach the tree on which it was resting, at eleven o'clock at night. 



But what appears to have as much effect upon the song, and indeed upon the 

 whole economy, of birds, as any thing else, is wind. The most hardy native 

 birds, which have braved the severity of our coldest winters, as the little Wren, 

 the Tits, &c, look miserably starved and uncomfortable on a windy day ; and 

 so soon as the boisterous March winds visit us, every throat is silent ; as long as 

 they continue, moreover, not one of the birds which we have mentioned as 

 singing in February, is ever heard. Indeed wind seems to cause a complete stag- 

 nation in the ornithological world ; and although we are not aware of its causing 

 the death of even one of the most delicate species, yet it seems so unfavourable 

 to activity, that, so far from enjoying their accustomed frolics, birds are often 

 barely able to obtain a subsistence sufficient to keep them in " good case." 

 During the March winds the smaller birds betake themselves, as much as possi- 

 ble, to the sheltered lowlands ; and though herbage is at that season everywhere 

 scarce, yet the practiced ornithologist well knows that he will add comparatively 

 little to his knowledge in his favourite line, at this time. 



